Using Effects in Avid Liquid

Avid Liquid allows users to add over 1,000 interesting effects
to their film, including color correction and slow motion. To use these
effects, all anyone needs is a little creativity and some pre-made
clips.

Step 1: Using Effects in Avid Liquid

Avid Liquid was one of the first programs to support true HDV (high
definition video). HDV usually takes a large, expensive video card to
work. Yet, Avid Liquid recommends only upgrading to an ATI gaming card,
which is relatively inexpensive. Users do not need to run out and buy
the most expensive graphics card to use this program. It's not
necessary.

Basically, the program uses both the GPU (graphics processing unit)
and the video card to create the graphics. The effects created on the
GPU are added to the film in real time. They will, however, be rendered
in the background so that Liquid can get them ready to be outputted to
other formats.

Any effect in Liquid can be customized. Users generally just need to
right click on the tool bar where they are working and hit customize.

Step 2: Adding an Effect to a Film

Liquid generally has three windows, one that shows information about
effects or other information associated with the clip, the actual clip
and, at the bottom, the sequence. When a user opens up an editor, it
will be displayed at the bottom.

Now, let's say that the filmmaker wishes to manipulate the color of a
certain part of a clip. To do this, he will be using the Color
Correction Editor. To do this, users should follow the below steps:

Open up the clip that needs to be edited.

Open up the Color Correction Editor. Then, click on the arrow
beneath it to "extend dialog". This will expand the size of the Color
Correction Editor so that users can see all of the available tools. The
sequence at the bottom should disappear.

Click on the icon for the Add Selective Color. The image will come
up zoomed in with a pipette (dropper) and a circle with crossed lines in
the middle (cross hairs). These tools will help guide the editor.

Now, left click on the color that needs to be changed. Go to the Selective Color Wheel to get the new color and hue.

Users can select up to 15 colors, which is done by holding down the Control key and selecting colors and hues.

With the colors selected, now the color of the clip or section of clip can be furthered modified until it is the desired color.

When done, just hit the gray box located outside of the Selective Color Correction Color Wheel.

Filmmakers can choose to leave the color as is, or they can adjust it even further with the Color Isolation tools.

While this is only the guide for this effect, there are many more
effects that videographers and filmmakers can access. If a user is new
to Liquid, however, they may want to walk through some of the tutorials
to get a better idea of what's available.